


Levee

by sciencefictioness



Series: United [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gabriel Reyes Did Not Approve This Message, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, UN Trash Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: The cold is something alive here even on the ground, but this far up in the air it has teeth, and they dig into Gabriel and refuse to let go.  SEP left Gabriel running hot, and it’s moments like this that he’s grateful. They don’t come often.They don’t last long.“I don’t know how the fuck you stand it up here,” he says after a while.  There are soft footsteps. A huff of laughter.“I like the quiet,” Ana says as she sidles up next to him, never looking away from the treeline.  “Usually,” she adds wryly, the meaning clear in her tone. Gabriel is intruding.She’s only pretending to mind.Being with each other is almost as good as being alone.  They don’t need to speak, don’t need to fill the silence for it to have meaning.  There’s an understanding that comes from having had her hands buried in his guts, shoving his organs back where they belong while the whole world was crashing down.  Needles in his throat and his blood smeared high on her cheekbone anddon’t you fucking do this to me, Gabriel, you piece of shit.I’ll never forgive you.Again, and again.  Ana has always kept him together.It’s why he comes to her when he needs to fall apart.





	Levee

The base is nestled far enough away from civilization that the nearest city is only a glimmer of light in the distance. Headquarters is in Zurich, but none of Gabriel’s crew rotates through there; people pay less attention to an outpost tucked into the base of the Alps with nothing but trees and rocks as far as the eye can see. When he has to come to Switzerland for something other than politicking, Gabriel spends his time here.

He isn’t the only one who prefers the Jungfrau base. 

Gabriel watches his breath fog, snow drifting in slow motion all around, dusting the guardrails and settling on the walkways. The tower is the highest vantage point for miles.

It’s lonely in a way places can’t be all by themselves. Loneliness people bring with them, and can’t quite leave behind.

The cold is something alive here even on the ground, but this far up in the air it has teeth, and they dig into Gabriel and refuse to let go. SEP left Gabriel running hot, and it’s moments like this that he’s grateful. They don’t come often.

They don’t last long.

Even SEP can’t keep him warm here, no matter how hard it tries. The sun dropped below the horizon an hour ago, but Gabriel keeps staring.

Keeps waiting.

“I don’t know how the fuck you stand it up here,” he says after a while. There are soft footsteps. A huff of laughter.

“I like the quiet,” Ana says as she sidles up next to him, never looking away from the treeline. “Usually,” she adds wryly, the meaning clear in her tone. Gabriel is intruding. 

She’s only pretending to mind.

She’s got none of his bulk, none of the SEP in her blood, but she’s still just as dangerous. Moreso, probably. He’ll never tell her.

Being with each other is almost as good as being alone. They don’t need to speak, don’t need to fill the silence for it to have meaning. There’s an understanding that comes from having had her hands buried in his guts, shoving his organs back where they belong while the whole world was crashing down. Needles in his throat and his blood smeared high on her cheekbone and  _ don’t you fucking do this to me, Gabriel, you piece of shit. _

_ I’ll never forgive you. _

Again, and again, and again. Ana has always kept him together.

It’s why he comes to her when he needs to fall apart. Gabriel pulls something out of his pocket; a little square of black tech with a button on one side. He lets Ana see him press it, watches her brows draw together.

There’s probably no one listening. No one comes up here but Ana, and the occasional grunt doing their patrols. Climb the tower, make a circle,  _ all clear up here.  _

There’s probably no one listening, but if there was ever a time Gabriel wanted to be sure, it’s now.

“I need your help with something,” he says. Ana stays quiet. Waits for him to continue.

She doesn’t need to say yes. Ana gives him hell, sometimes, but she has always been there when he needed her. 

At least when he wasn’t being stubborn, trying to do everything on his own. Gabriel doesn’t  _ want  _ to need her now, but Jack asked him for this, and he’s right about one thing. 

She should know. Gabriel owes her that, at least. It would be more satisfying to do this his way, and something deep inside him rankles at giving that up, but he doesn’t have a choice.

“I’ve got some high profile targets I need to take care of, as quietly and cleanly as possible. Off the record.”

Ana cocks her head.

“How high profile are we talking?”

Gabriel sucks air through his teeth and looks out at the trees. Thinks of Jack wedged in a too-small hotel bathtub, water gone pink with his blood, face buried in his hands.

“Several UN ambassadors and affiliates, two high ranking military personnel, and a translator.”

It isn’t everyone, but it’s a start. Figuring out exactly who’s on his list will take some wetwork, but Gabriel isn't bothered.

He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, especially not this time. Ana blinks, twice, but it’s the only indication that Gabriel has just told her something absolutely batshit. 

“Define ‘several’.”

Jack’s face tucked in his chest, voice so soft he can barely hear him,  _ I don’t know who all of them were.  _ Gabriel flexes his jaw, knuckles white as he squeezes them tighter around the guardrail.

“Five to start. I’ll need to gather intelligence from at least one of them. There may be more.”

Ana knows what ‘gathering intelligence’ means here. She knows Gabriel in ways Jack doesn’t anymore. 

In ways that Gabriel won’t allow himself to be known by Jack. It’s been a long time since the crisis, and Jack has spent more of it than he’d like behind a desk. 

Gabriel hasn’t pointed a weapon at an omnic in ages. His bullets land in meat now, not machines. Shallow graves and staged suicides and bodies sinking into the ocean out of sight. 

Jack is back in the states right now, putting all their funding to use. Planning med-sec renovations. Allotting grants to eco-points. McCree is on base with him, keeping an eye on everything. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he knows he’s supposed to be looking. McCree is a lot of things, not all of them good, but Gabriel will give him one thing.

He’s been taught by the best. Gabriel can trust him to watch Jack.

Can trust that Jack won’t notice.

“You’re aware that this is a terrible idea, I’m assuming.”

Gabriel knows. Nods, chest tight as he tries and fails to keep his thoughts from going all the dark places he’s been trying to avoid. 

Jack on his hands and knees bleeding. Jack with someone’s fist in his hair. Jack with wide, black pupils, slurring his words and stumbling as some overpaid politician pries his jaw open.

“What did they do?”

Jack with his suit torn open, tie twisted tight around his neck as he chokes. Jack with fingers in his mouth, someone laughing as they pour whiskey down his throat and watch him gag. Gabriel closes his eyes, tries to shake it away. It’s all his worst imaginings— Jack hasn’t told him anything else about what happened.

Gabriel hasn’t asked. He needed names, and he got them, but his mind is content to fill in the blanks for him. 

The little sounds Jack makes when he’s wounded. The way he clenches his fists when he’s trying not to flinch.

Gabriel’s throat aches. It’s hard to breathe.

_ They took something from me,  _ he thinks.

_ They took something from  _ Jack.

“Gabriel?”

Gabriel presses his forehead to the guardrail and laces his fingers together behind his head, elbows curled around his ears as he sinks into himself. The noise he makes is pathetic, something low and laced with agony. The pain is like nothing he’s experienced before; it’s been looming over him, waiting to strike, but Gabriel has held it at bay until now.

Ana wraps her arms around him. Gabriel hates the way he feels safer there, Ana’s mouth pressed against his beanie, a hand splayed over his shoulder to hold him upright. She squeezes him harder. Doesn’t say a word.

Gabriel sobs. He doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t curl into her. He cries and it  _ hurts  _ and he can’t make it stop, body shaking as Ana rubs circles on his back and weathers him like a storm.

It takes a while for him quiet. There was more of it in him than he expected, and by the time he’s finished he’s sore all over, exhausted like he’s been in a fight. 

“Gabriel. What did they do to Jack?” Ana asks, an undercurrent of something frighteningly cold in her voice.

Gabriel doesn’t lift his head. Doesn’t think he can face her yet.

“What do men in power ever do?”

There’s a heavy beat of silence, the sound of Ana breathing.

_ “Jack?”  _ Ana says. It’s a question but it isn’t.

Gabriel turns his face to the side to look at her, peering with one eye through the bend of his elbow.

“He asked me to tell you,” Gabriel says. 

The  _ otherwise I wouldn’t have  _ goes unspoken.

Ana’s eyes rove unseeing across him for a moment, then the glimmer of emotion in them vanishes like a candle being snuffed.

“Give me the list,” Ana says, and Gabriel lets it roll through him.

Gabriel gives her names, the way Jack gave him names. Haltingly, with clenched fists and a voice that sounds haunted. 

She swallows them up like the waves swallow bodies. Gabriel won’t hear them again, but he knows they’re there. Ana’s vengeance in an infinite thing that doesn’t forgive. Doesn’t forget. They’re alike in that, at least.

It carries them through.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tell me nice things or come yell at me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/scifictioness?lang=en)


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